Opening the Dark Portal
thumb|The Dark Portal Objective In this wing of the Caverns of Time, players must defend the last Guardian Medivh, in what used to be known as the Black Morass. The Guardian, possessed by Sargeras, attempts to open the Dark Portal to Draenor, while wave upon wave of dragonkin from the Infinite Dragonflight attempt to alter time by preventing the creation of the Dark Portal. To access this dungeon, Escape from Durnholde Keep must be completed first. Party Makeup This instance is less forgiving than many in its desired party setup. An ideal group consists of main tank, main healer, 2 DPS (at least one should be ranged), and a hybrid capable of both offtanking and healing. Strategy The encounter consists of 18 waves of dragonkin from the Infinite Dragonflight. At waves 6, 12, and 18, there is a boss encounter. Other waves are simply trash mobs. Once started, this encounter is timed. Additional portals will open before the current one is finished, and finishing early allows for time between waves. Before the encounter Before the encounter is started, clear the islands around Medivh of trash mobs. Also be sure to clear a straight path from the instance entrance to Medivh; if your party wipes on the last boss you may have time to resurrect and try again. Trash Waves Trash waves consist of one elite and non-elite mobs which will head toward Medivh and begin to attack the shield protecting him. Kill the elite to close the portal and stop the non-elites from spawning. The non-elite mobs can be handled by a mage, warlock, or hunter; other party members should focus on killing the elite. The elite which spawns is randomly chosen from several possible types: Warlock - casts AOE Shadowbolt, Fear, and a curse increasing spell damage taken by 50% Mage - casts Pyroblast, Blastwave, and Frostbolt Warrior 1 - Sunder Armor Warrior 2 - Mortal Strike Wave 6: Chrono Lord Deja Chrono Lord Deja is still an easy fight. The only ability of note is an arcane blast which will hit for 1000 - 2000 damage. This is easily healed through, and the party member assigned to deal with the trash headed for Medivh should still be able to do so during this encounter. After Chrono Lord Deja is defeated, your group will likely have time to rest before the seventh wave arrives. Wave 12: Temporus Temporus is tricky thanks to his Mortal Wound ability, which decreases healing taken by 10% and stacks until your tank cannot be healed. There are four options available for dealing with Mortal Wound. First, you can ignore it and simply DPS the boss down. If you choose this option, be sure your DPS classes are up to par and have whoever is in charge of shield trash ignore them. (This is probably a good idea anyway.) Second, you can use an off tank. A feral druid, paladin, or even a rogue with evasion can offtank Temporus long enough for the debuffs to wear off the main tank. Third, your tank can attempt some fancy footwork. The debuff is applied every 6 seconds and lasts for 8 seconds, but it is only applied while the tank is in melee range of Temporus. If the tank moves out of melee range for 2 seconds as the debuff is about to be applied, they will wear off, allowing the tank to be healed once again. There is a fourth option, which requires some skilled mage work. The new mage ability spellsteal allows mages to steal "haste". If your tank is a paladin and they bubble they will wipe their agro, and if the mage can keep their agro above everyone else, Temporus will come after the mage, at which point he uses his spellsteal ability and now runs away fast enough that there is no way he can be caught. When the pally bubble is over the paladins debuff should be gone and they can re-establish agro. if this takes too long the mage should have an iceblock ready. As of 2.0.8 there are no buffs to steal from Temporus and he is now immune to Slow. "I just did Black Moras (16.02.2007) and noticed that debuff dont stack now more then 4 times.I am paladin tank and was prepared to buble at 8 stacks and then wait to go off while someone run around with boss and then take it back but at 4 stacks , it stoped and even gone off then i got them back to 4 stacks but not more then this" "17.02.2007 No our warrior was still getting 6 and more debuffs. Though we managed to dps it down with druid and palla as healers" Of all the waves in the encounter, this is the best one on which to ignore the shield trash and use a beacon after. Wave 18: Aeonus The final boss and wave of the encounter, this boss comes alone, without any trash headed for the shield. He himself will head for the shield and attack it, but it will take him a long time to break the shield if it have previously not taken a lot of damage. So you can make sure your party is fully ready before engaging him. Aeonus's two abilities consist of a sand breath, which deals roughly 3000 damage in a frontal cone, and a time stop which will paralyze your entire party for 3 seconds, but will not wipe aggro. This should be a relatively easy fight (arguably easier than Temporus) as long as your main tank is kept topped off and can survive the damage taken during the time stop. The Chrono Beacons The NPC at the beginning of the instance will give each party member a Chrono-beacon. These can be used if the shield trash becomes unmanageable. Do NOT use them near a boss, as they will despawn/die rather quickly. (It is not known whether this is intentional or a bug.) Instead use them on dragonkin that make it to Medivh's portal. You may also use them on the Rift Keepers/Lords, at least as of 1/14/07. The trash during the Temporus encounter can be ignored if no one does anything to aggro them. Using a beacon after that encounter will clean them up quite quickly. Why should the Alliance help? Some people have wondered why the Alliance would help Medivh open the Dark Portal. One of the quest NPCs tells you that if the Dark Portal was never opened, the Alliance would never have been formed, and Azeroth would have been destroyed by the Burning Legion. Sa'at says: Indeed, if the orcs never made it to Azeroth, the Alliance would never form. Eventually civil war will break out , further weakening the human kingdoms Video Video of The Instance Category:Instance:Black Morass